Listening to 70 people from 70 different countries saying “cheers” in their native language is pretty cool. I could recognize a few, and from the last game between the Minnesota Vikings and the New Orleans Saints, ‘Skol’ was pretty much expected. Each country has their own way of saying it but I was kind of surprised when so many countries used the Americanized version of cheers and at least one country, I believe it was Nigeria, didn’t say anything before just drinking. Hey, we all have our priorities. Taiwan made it interesting and we got to learn that they sing a song before drinking, which was pretty interesting.
No matter how you say it ‘cheers’ is something that’s universally understood as ‘let’s drink and be happy/merry’ and so on and so forth. It’s the wish for a good time with good friends and good laughs. Sometimes it’s said just to be ironic, other times it’s said because someone’s trying to be sarcastic, but it’s almost always said with a purpose. The idea of it isn’t so much to just say it, but to say it with something behind it, a feeling or an emotion that people can feel and can fully tell is reciprocated in some fashion. You can hear it in movies, in TV, and even on the radio and in music at times. Rihanna made a great song that goes “Cheers to the freakin’ weekend, I’ll drink to that…”
I mean how much better of an explanation do you need for it? Cheers is more than just a word, it’s a wish for good times no matter where you’re at or what you’re doing, it’s the desire to be good in the moment and beyond, no matter what might happen. Typically when it’s said people are drinking, but it can transcend that situation quite easily and become something more than it was originally intended. It’s a way to tell someone to not let the world get them down, to raise their spirits as well as their glass and just drink to the good times, or to live for the moment and nothing else, and let everything that comes next sort itself out. That sounds increasingly positive and not at all realistic but it’s something that I personally believe in. No matter how dark the night gets and how tough life gets, raise your hand, your glass, and remember that there’s more than this one moment, than this one day to go. Everything can be turned around eventually.
Cheers was even the name of a popular TV show, and it was a good time all the time for the most part, as the name implied and the show displayed. It’s something you can’t fully explain but you can feel if you tip your nose to the wind and really take the time to notice what it is that you have to feel good about. Even in the down times just saying cheers can brighten your life that much, and can possibly lift you up in a way you didn’t realize was possible.
Follow Us
